


Practical Volitation

by Allothi



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Crack, Get Together, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-05
Updated: 2009-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allothi/pseuds/Allothi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin learns to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practical Volitation

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the hiatus between seasons one and two. Follows fairly soon after 1x13.
> 
> Huge thanks to waldorph and stealingpennies for betaing!

The idea first came to him on a Thursday. It was a beautiful day, all clear sky and warm sun, and Merlin had fled his duties for the afternoon to enjoy the weather. Arthur could live for a few hours without him. Arthur would be annoyed, of course -- he would shout, and complain, and suggest that Merlin was not, in fact, an entirely proficient manservant -- but Arthur would live: and Merlin would almost certainly survive the experience along with him.

He raced down pathways, out of the city walls and through the fields, testing himself, seeing how fast he could go: he was falling in love with _this_ moment, and then the next, and then the next. Less than a week ago he had been in the depths of agony. Arthur, and then Merlin's mother, then Gaius, each in turn had lain dying before his eyes. His disbelief, his rage, his passionate hatred of a universe that could be so callously cruel had been overpowering. But -- somehow -- he had saved them. _He_, Merlin, had saved them all. Arthur was recovered. Merlin's mother was recovered, and home, and safe. And Gaius, too, was recovered and healthy, returning to his wry and _careful_ self.

As he started to lose his breath, Merlin slowed his speed to an idle walk, panting, happy and flushed. He had come to the edge of a forest, now, and walked along at the side of the trees, wandering in and out of the shade and the light. He could hear birdsong, immensely sweet. In front of him, a sparrow hopped along the grass. It ruffled itself at Merlin's approach, and sped away across his path on tiny wings.

Merlin heard the crack of larger wings, further distant, and looked round to see a flock of wood pigeons climbing into the sky. He imagined what it would feel like to fly himself. He would speed into the air, and tear through the sky with the wind burning against his cheeks. He thought of soaring, and swooping downwards, scaring livestock and chasing the birds, and he tried to imagine what the world might look like from on high. He felt power warming in his veins. He let it flow through his body, overwhelming and strong. He spread his arms wide, and took off at a run, into the fields, leaving the forest behind him.

Upon which, nothing happened.

That is to say, Merlin ran. Obviously. And for a moment or two, with the magic intense within him, he felt like an extremely powerful person. He might have felt so for longer, but unfortunately, as he ran he caught his boot on a stone. He toppled, and fell, face-forwards and lacking in dignity: but picked himself up to try again. Another failure. He tried again. And then again. And, stubbornly, again, and again.

By the time he returned to the castle, it was late -- later than he had intended. He had stayed out well into the evening. Over this time, he hadn't achieved all that much. He had tripped several times more. He had also, several times, tried leaping from a tree, which he now admitted to himself had not been the good idea it had seemed.

He had not learnt to fly. He had not even learnt how to fall from a tree without injuring himself. It was a set-back. However, Merlin was not deterred from his ambition. He felt certain that flight _was_ something he could achieve. He would find a way.

He reached Arthur's rooms, where he found Arthur sitting, impatient, flicking half-focussed through manuscripts, waiting to be dressed for a feast whose existence had -- till this moment -- escaped Merlin's memory.

"You're late," said Arthur, by way of a greeting. "You'll wear the hat, tonight."

"I'd rather not, thanks."

"That's _why_ you'll wear it."

"But not the rest of the outfit?" Merlin tried.

"The whole outfit." Arthur looked up at him, smirking. Then he looked Merlin over. "You're a _mess_. You're -- have you looked at yourself, Merlin?"

"What?"

Arthur stood. "What on Earth have you been up to?" He sounded somewhat concerned.

"Uh." Merlin's mind blanked, and he flashed to his secret. But Arthur was indicating towards Merlin's knees, and then one of his elbows, which was not the usual mode of behaviour upon identifying a warlock, and Merlin, reassured, though self-conscious, looked where Arthur indicated. There were several muddied, fraying holes around the knees of his trousers. Through these, he could see muddied, bloodied skin. Now that Merlin thought about it, he could feel the sting of several minor gashes. He twisted to look at his elbow, which seemed in a similar state, though it hurt less. His hands stung, rather, too. His palms were grazed and rough, and grey with dirt. He probably _did_ look rather troubling. Some of the other servants had cast him odd looks, he realised, as he'd hastened through the castle.

Somehow, in between his excitement at the thought of _flight_, and his mild panic over his lateness, he had managed to forget about physical sensation. He felt, now that he thought about it, that he was tired, and he ached.

"Oh," he said.

"Yes," said Arthur. "Really. What have you been _doing?_"

_Learning to fly_, however true, was an impossible answer. Merlin tried instead: "Climbing trees?"

"Falling out of them, more like."

Merlin winced at the truth of this.

"You're an idiot," Arthur informed him. He looked Merlin up and down again, a sort of bewildered, almost-tenderness on his face. He walked closer. "You've been falling out of trees. You-- you are _insane_. And an idiot."

"You said idiot already."

Arthur put his hand round Merlin's upper arm. "It needed saying twice."

"Oh," Merlin said, and felt self-conscious. Arthur's hand, Arthur's general proximity, made him think things he didn't want to think. Arthur's face was really not far from Merlin's own. And Merlin had really promised himself that he would stop having all those mad, stupid, foolhardy, daydreaming _thoughts_ about Arthur's somewhat attractive mouth. Or his nice blue eyes. Or his really rather gorgeous bone structure -- or what it might feel like for Merlin to run his hands along Arthur's skin -- or to lean in towards him and-- Merlin wasn't attracted to Arthur at all. Arthur was -- not all that much of a prat, really, he'd found out. But it still helped to think it, in certain circumstances. Arthur was a _prat_. Merlin stepped away from him, uncomfortably.

"You know, you're a _prat_," he said. "A royal one," he added. He stepped back again.

Arthur only shook his head, and touched his forehead with his now-empty hand. "Clean yourself up," he said. "Forget the hat, you can skip the feast, you're--" He gestured, vaguely. "You can send someone else up to dress me."

Merlin fled the room.

~

Merlin's next experiment with flying came several days later. He was stood at the side of the training field, watching Arthur and his knights at work, as they went through the familiar motions. He was aware that it was not, of course, entirely sensible for him to work on his magic right where he was, in plain view of both Arthur and at least a score of other strong and sword-wielding men -- any of whom, except Arthur, would probably not have thought twice before making use of said swords upon the body of a flight-attempting, manservanting warlock, had they only know that the description applied to Merlin.

But he was impatient for further practice. Starting on the evening of his first, unsuccessful attempts, he had spent all his free time -- and some time that had, according to Arthur, technically not been free -- tearing through first his own and then Gaius' books, searching for any information on the subject of human flight: but to no avail. The nearest he had come across had been some amusing but utterly useless pictures of men with boards strapped to their arms, and pasted with feathers.

And then, there had been the image of a strange, sharp-nosed, cylindrical thing, with a flat, arrowing span of what must have been intended as wings, and odd, smaller, blunter cylinders drawn beneath them. Three blunted, flat triangles stuck out at either side and on top of the thing's pointed tail. The thing was sketched on an unnaturally white, loose sheet of parchment, which had fallen from one of Gaius' more incomprehensible books when Merlin lifted it from the shelf. There was a label above the drawing, in an ornate hand that did not seem to fit the sturdy lines of the image below. The label read: 'Flying Machine'. Merlin was amazed by the picture's strangeness, and that anyone might believe such a clumsy, bulky-looking thing could ever attain flight. He replaced the sheet within the book, guessing at where it belonged.

He had, in addition to his reading, mentioned the idea of flight to Gaius, over breakfast the morning after his inspiration. Cautiously, though. It had occurred to Merlin that this was the kind of thing Gaius was likely to disapprove of, and want to prevent. Since Gaius' feelings did, on a tentative raising of the topic, seem to lie in this direction, Merlin decided to let it drop.

All this time had been wasted. Merlin _wanted_ to fly, more and more. And as he had followed Arthur out onto the training grounds, a new strategy had come into his brain.

It had struck him that he had been quite unrealistic in expecting that he would immediately be able to take off and soar into the air if he only found the right spell or means of focussing his magic. As powerful as he -- at least sometimes -- seemed to be, magical flying was probably going to be a quite complex and difficult operation. He would have to work at it, and be patient. It was manageable, though, he was certain. The fact that, in all his reading, he had come across no evidence whatsoever that even the mightiest of warlocks had ever achieved flight -- which seemed to suggest that no one had ever achieved such a thing -- only encouraged him. He liked the idea of being the first. And he was full of compelling dreams. And now, he had a plan. What he needed to do, he decided, was to take things in small steps. Before he learnt to fly, first, he would learn how to _hover_.

Therefore, while Arthur and his knights attempted to do non-dangerous levels of harm to one another with a variety of extremely dangerous objects, Merlin concentrated very hard on his feet. Specifically, on their position relative to the ground.

At first, his efforts were as unsuccessful as his initial attempts at full-blown flight had been: if, thankfully, without the accompanying injuries. He mustered his magic within him. He felt certain of his power: he felt the crackle of it like static at his scalp and in his fingertips. Yet, somehow, he could not make it work for him. He could not persuade all this ready, waiting energy to gather itself where he wanted it, to lift him, as he wished it to do, even a millimetre above the earth.

He watched his feet carefully, just in case his magic might act, as it sometimes did, without caring to inform him. But his feet remained stubbornly fixed, exactly where he had placed them.

Arthur shouted over to him. At first, Merlin was too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice. When he did, as Arthur was shouting to him for a second time, it was only barely -- he was still thinking about _flight_ \-- and he didn't catch what Arthur had said. Arthur called a third time, voice louder and more impatient, and Merlin looked up, shaking himself into attentiveness. He rubbed at the back of his neck, which was stiff from being bent downwards, and looked about for Arthur.

"Come on, Merlin," Arthur said. He flashed a smile. It was the most gorgeous, stunning, repressed-attraction-reawakening of smiles. It knocked Merlin off his feet.

It knocked Merlin off his feet quite literally, and, infinitesimally, into the air. The magic caught and gathered, exactly as Merlin had been striving for it to do, pooling beneath his feet to hold him up without support from the soil. It was shaky -- it felt odd -- but it was working. Merlin, unprepared and distracted, panicked, wobbled, and lost control. He had travelled only the minutest of distances upwards -- too minute, thankfully, for Arthur to have had any idea -- but he dropped clumsily. He fell backwards, slipping on his feet to come to an inelegant landing on his rear and elbows.

Arthur himself laughed, clearly far more pleased by Merlin's pain than any psychologically healthy human being ought to have been. He came over, though, and even offered his hand to help Merlin up.

"I didn't think it was possible," Arthur said, "but I think you actually are getting even stranger every day." He pulled Merlin to his feet, and for a moment, he frowned. "Even stranger... Is, er." He shrugged. In the process, he seemed to realise that Merlin, now standing, had not let go of his hand. Merlin -- Merlin realised -- had not let go of Arthur's hand. He had not let go of Arthur's hand at the point -- Merlin tried to calculate, with growing and overwhelming panic -- when he really, really ought to have _let go of Arthur's hand_.

His brain, ever helpful, informed him that it was a very nice, strong, warm hand.

"Um," Merlin said. As a response, it gave a distressingly accurate picture of his state of mind. He stared at the place where their hands were joined. Whatever neurological circuit usually arranged for sensible behaviour was obviously malfunctioning, because even now, he _still_ did not let go.

Arthur, too, looked down, and looked thoughtful. Then he gave Merlin's palm a squeeze, loosed his grip -- Merlin's own having slackened in his surprise -- and made for the armoury.

Merlin held his hand up, in front of his face. He really, really couldn't have a -- a _thing_ for Arthur. With all the time they spent together -- with all that Arthur was supposed to _be_ \-- it would be too impossible. Too awkward and too wrong. And Arthur could never-- Merlin stopped that thought. He did not even want to begin to consider whether he might have a chance. If he did find reasons to think there might be a _reason_ for his -- interest -- then his interest might actually begin to exist. Which it didn't. He would not find any justification for any feelings of the kind he definitely did not have. Arthur could _never_. And Merlin _did not have a _thing_ for Prince Arthur of Camelot._

"Come _on_," Arthur called to him, glancing over his shoulder to smile at Merlin one more time.

Merlin's magic flickered to life, and he had to fight not to shoot several centimetres into the air.

~

Merlin's third experiment in flying came unexpectedly. It was that same evening, as he sat on his bed and remembered the events by the training field. When he found that he was in fact no longer sitting on the bed, but floating a little way above it, he did not panic this time around. He managed to control the magic well enough to lower himself downwards, little by little, in hesitating increments, touching back down with only the lightest of thumps. It was a relieving improvement in his control.

When, however, he began to float upwards in a similar manner, and for somewhat similar reasons, as he served Arthur his breakfast the following morning, he felt rather more alarmed. Fortunately, his moment of involuntary hovering occurred while Arthur was bent over his breakfast, Merlin standing some way behind him and to his side. Unfortunately, Merlin's fears that he might be seen in his incriminating, elevated position somewhat impaired his newly-developing smooth-landing ability.

Arthur turned round at the _thud_ of Merlin's feet coming back into contact -- hard and slightly painfully: he had dropped himself too fast -- with the floor.

"Merlin, are you _jumping?_"

"No!" Merlin said. Then he realised the suitability of the explanation. "Yes!"

Arthur left a well-judged beat of comic timing before he asked, "D'you think Gaius will ever find a cure for your severe mental affliction?"

"No, probably not," Merlin conceded.

~

Merlin's third intentional experiment in flying, along with the fourth, fifth and sixth, and many beyond that, took place in his bedroom. When considering his control problems and how he could tackle them, he had also begun to consider various possible risks. At some point in these considerations, he had been struck by a sudden, horrifying vision of himself soaring upwards -- as gloriously as he had dreamed -- only to drop, sharply and sickeningly heavy in the air. If this happened, he would, he thought, die a messy, painful, _splattered_ sort of death.

In his room, he risked banging his head on the ceiling, and possibly causing minor damage to his brain if he did this often enough, but he probably did not risk the permanent extinguishing of his mortal flame. As compromises went, this seemed fair, if hard (like the ceiling).

Interspersed with these planned and safety-controlled attempts, it must be admitted that Merlin made several more unintentional experiments in flying. When arming Arthur for his morning patrol, for example, standing at his shoulder to fasten the last of his armour, Merlin had found himself paying seriously non-platonic amounts of attention to the strong line of Arthur's jaw. His power flooded up, the epitome of inconsiderate, and shoved Merlin's feet up from the ground. By a fortunate reflex, Merlin's knees went slack. He ended up effectively kneeling upon the air, his hands and body only slightly higher than before.

As he finished his work, sweating and tense, Merlin slowly let his lower legs unbend into their original position. It took an unpleasant few moments. Throughout, he was constantly expecting Arthur to look down, or over his shoulder, and see what had happened. The heavens, however, must have been smiling on Merlin: Arthur remained thankfully unaware of the condition of Merlin's legs, for the entire duration of their brief gravitational opt-out.

Arthur did notice, and comment, that Merlin was rather pale. Happily for Merlin's fraying nerves, this was shortly after his feet had renewed their acquaintance with the floor. He informed Arthur -- since it was the truth -- that he had always been pale. Arthur took the opportunity to inform Merlin that he expected Merlin had always been an idiot, too. Merlin didn't bother with a come-back.

The exchange had a reassuring normality to it. Arthur had not noticed anything. Arthur was behaving prattishly. Arthur _was_ a prat. He was a prat for whom Merlin had large amounts of respect and liking, but he was definitely a prat. Merlin, therefore, almost definitely could not have a _thing_ for him.

He watched Arthur stride out of the room, proud and strong, in shining armour, prepared and ready for whatever man or creature might threaten his people. Merlin sighed. Wretchedly, he confessed to himself that he really, absolutely had a massive _thing_ for Arthur.

But it was a useful _thing_, at least. Because now, in his room, with a single and not at all self-indulgent thought of one of Arthur's various attractions, Merlin found that he could make himself fly. The right memory -- or the right imagining -- combined with just the right conscious, regulated application of magic, could be used to let him lift himself up. He could hover, standing upon nothingness: and, sometimes, with concentration, he could turn himself so that he lay, face-forwards and arms outstretched, in a true flying position in the air.

There was not much space for him to move about in this position. And he did begin to suspect -- shortly after hitting upon the discovery that, with his practice area so small, moving at any speed greater than a slow walking pace inevitably caused him to crash into one of the walls -- that there might be something very slightly absurd about what he was doing. Certainly, he was glad not to have a witness. Still, it seemed like the _right_ position for flight.

It would probably work better out of doors.

He did consider returning to outdoor practice around this stage. He was put off by the fact that he had not yet really achieved a very good success rate in his experiments. He was definitely getting much better at flying -- he was making progress. But he still continued to suffer a fair number of mishaps. Landings, in particular, continued to trouble him. Particularly -- importantly -- landings made from the flying position.

Encouraging his legs to float up and back behind him quickly became quite easy for Merlin. However, encouraging them back down again, without his head and upper body deciding to join in on the operation and sink to an equal level, was something that seemed disproportionately difficult. He had, in fact, not once managed to safely return to his feet for the desired upright landing, and landing on his stomach always seemed to involve bashing his chin, and various other bodyparts, in unpleasant, uncomfortable ways.

Merlin also encountered a difficulty in that, while thinking a little of Arthur allowed him to float or fly with reasonable safety, it also often led to _more_ thinking of Arthur. Thinking a lot about Arthur involved either worries of various sorts, or a rather humiliating degree of enthusiastic interest. Each of these tended to cause Merlin to lose hold of his already-tenuous grasp on his flight magic. The number of times when, after a particularly possessing thought, he found himself taking a swift journey in a downwards direction -- or, worse, upwards, to crash into the ceiling and _then_ fall -- was thirty-eight by the end of his third bedroom session. He was only saved from doing serious damage to himself, thanks to his dangerously distractible brain, by the speedy telekinetic control of his bed. He was just quick enough at this to be able to send it rushing across to whichever part of the floor he seemed likely to hit, before the _hitting_ part of this could come about in painfully physical actuality.

The continued risk of splattering, along with other bodily dangers, that all this suggested he would be at in the open persuaded him to continue to limit his flight practice to the indoors.

~

It was at some point around his sixth session of experimentation that it began to occur to Merlin that the exact method of self-training he had been following, while, in its way, very good and successful, did, nevertheless, have some serious problems. The large amount of time spent thinking about Arthur, for instance, was having the effect of rather intensifying Merlin's _thing_.

He had, as a part of his flight work, somehow ended up effectively developing an extensive mental catalogue of Arthur's many physical attractions. A very extensive catalogue. As Arthur's manservant, Merlin had, one way or another, been the fortunate witness to rather a lot of _attractions_. And he had found that consideration of Arthur's character -- his little habits, his temperament, his troubles: the broad brushstrokes of his best qualities, and even the minutiae of some of his worst -- seemed to be similarly efficacious in the warlock flight process. He had therefore been devoting a great deal of attention to this subject matter, too, as part of his efforts -- and the more he thought about such subject matter, the more intensely it seemed to affect him.

Moreover, when Merlin was in Arthur's company, he found, to his alarm, that his brain was automatically seeking out further details (of both the physical and the psychological kinds) that might have a chance at proving useful. Or, alternatively, when what he was sure was _supposed_ to be an organ of _thought_ \-- and perhaps even sense -- did not devote itself to this practice, his brain seemed to like to focus upon those details which it and Merlin had already discovered and contemplated.

He thought Arthur caught him at it, sometimes, and maybe smiled when he did. Merlin pushed the idea away. Still, he became increasingly prone to feel a little overwhelmed whenever he was in Arthur's company.

He also found it increasingly difficult to keep his feet on the ground.

The problem with training his body to respond to the thought of Arthur by rising into the air -- a problem which, had it been up to Merlin to decide in such matters of inner progress, would have been far clearer to him at a far earlier date -- was that he was, as a result, training his body to _respond to the thought of Arthur_ by _rising into the air_. Which is to say that the reaction, once he had begun to encourage it in his private sessions, became more and more of a problem when he was in public: and whereas at first his moments of accidental flight had tended to be limited to no more than two or three within twenty-four hours, there came a day when he counted seventeen occasions in a single morning on which he was at risk of being caught _in volitante delicto_.

In _full_ public -- that is to say, at times when there were a large number of people present -- he was thankfully in least danger. His brain and body, in their unholy team, did appear, on these occasions, to retain enough concern for his safety to keep the extent of his auto-levitations minimal. Indeed, whenever Uther and/or groups of armed men were nearby, fear kept Merlin firmly on the ground.

When only servants, or members of the court, might be his witnesses -- aside, of course, from Arthur himself -- the difficulties were greater. In such situations, Merlin frequently found himself performing acts of mild hovering. To protect himself, he got into the habit of looking out for the least visible area in any room or space, and occupying it whenever possible. He also learnt a concealment spell to hide himself from view, which could help occasionally -- but only really very occasionally. He could conceal himself sometimes, if no one was looking, at times when he thought his new flight reflex might be in particular danger of stimulation. But it was no more wise for him to disappear in full view -- as it were -- than it would be to fly.

Predictably, these slender precautions were not always entirely enough. There had been an occasion of drunken revelry when Arthur, without any warning, completely removed his shirt: and one of the court ladies had, Merlin was certain, actually seen him shoot up a little into the air. She had happened to glance towards his half-hidden spot at the corner of the hall at exactly the wrong moment, before Merlin could control himself. It was incredibly fortunate that she was the _only_ person to see, as far as Merlin could tell, and it was even more fortunate that she was drunk. A flying manservant, glimpsed only for a second, and after more than several glasses of the castle's best wine, could probably be dismissed in the brain of the average inhabitant as a fairly non-reality-based sight. At any rate, Merlin received no pressing invitations, subsequent to the shirt-removal incident, to either the dungeons, a pyre, or the executioner's block.

At times when only friends were present, Merlin's difficulties were greater again -- his levels of fear being much lower. There came an afternoon when, finding himself in one of the lesser halls with only Arthur and Morgana, Merlin's attention was captured by the way the sunlight shone in Arthur's straw-coloured hair. He floated upwards, in a haze, barely noticing what was happening until he was a good metre above ground level. When he did notice, he reasserted himself, and fought his magic down to bring himself to as quiet and quick a landing as he could manage.

Either one of Arthur and Morgana could have glanced to one side and seen what happened, at any point. Somehow, though, neither did. Their attention must have been too taken up with the court politics they were discussing -- neither even seemed to hear the slight sound as Merlin's feet touched onto the floor.

The thought of Arthur's involvement in state affairs -- of his responsibilities, of the weight of duty that lay upon him, of the king he would one day be -- almost set Merlin off again. The subject of the future King Arthur lent itself all too easily to the kind of internal rhapsodising that served Merlin so well when he _wanted_ a more open relationship with gravity, but which would be extremely dangerous at present. Merlin focussed, instead, determinedly, on the joining places of the stones in the wall across from him. He followed the lines, tracing odd patterns with his eyes. He traced around a single stone in his mind, counting the number of times he made a complete oblong up to fifty.

"It's only a wall, Merlin," Arthur said, when Morgana had gone. "You've been _gazing_ at it for the last half hour, at least. Not falling in love with it, are you?"

_No, not with the wall._ Which was half way to a thought Merlin had meant not to think.

"I like walls," he told Arthur. _I like walls,_ he told himself, struggling for his focus. "They keep the drafts out."

"That's not really a reason to fall for one. Though why I expect reason from you..." Arthur shook his head. The sunlight was catching in his hair again. Merlin gritted his teeth. It was on occasions like this -- occasions when he and Arthur were alone together -- that his control was at its weakest. Apparently, when he was only with Arthur, his defective brain had decided he was at his safest.

"I really, really like walls." Merlin tried hard not to sound strange. It was a losing battle. "I just like them." He turned to the one behind him, so that no part of Arthur would come near to his view. He stared at it. Unfortunately, Arthur effectively circumvented this strategy by placing a hand on Merlin's shoulder, behind him.

"Merlin," said Arthur. "I wonder..."

_Walls_, Merlin thought. _Walls, stones, boulders -- Arthur! -- walls._

He did float, a tiny bit. Arthur must have taken it as him shrugging Arthur's hand away -- he stepped back, and started towards the door.

"Come on," said Arthur. "Idiot."

~

Merlin stared at a lot of walls over the following days. He seemed to be getting better at self-control, but it was slow progress. The potential consequences were too dire for him to let his guard down.

Arthur at first responded with jokes of various kinds on the subject of Merlin's apparent new infatuation with the stonemasonry. Some of these were intensely embarrassing: although his embarrassment did, at least, seem to help Merlin in his endeavours to not take flight.

After a couple of days, the jokes declined in number, and then altogether ceased. Merlin could only think that Arthur had got bored with the subject. He was more subdued in general -- Merlin decided that perhaps there were political troubles taking up Arthur's attention. Once he had the flying better in hand, Merlin thought, he really needed to work on a spell to let him listen in on Arthur's conferences with Uther.

Merlin sometimes thought Arthur was looking at him with slightly troubled kind of interest -- a thoughtfulness -- something new. One morning, sleepy and unthinking, Merlin looked straight back into Arthur's troubled eyes. Only momentarily: and then Merlin came back to himself, abruptly. After a flicker of a thought, he began to study the far wall of Arthur's room with particular intensity.

Arthur said, "You don't have to be so extreme, you know."

"Extreme?" Merlin shivered.

"Your behaviour's been pretty clear."

It hadn't, Merlin was almost certain. And so-- Arthur--

"You've been -- like this -- for a while now," Arthur said. "The message has gone home." He sounded as if he was frowning, a heavy look in his eyes. Merlin could have pictured it. He carefully didn't.

"I don't know what you mean," he said. He told himself, _Such _interesting_ stone. All grey, and stony._ "I haven't been like anything."

Arthur ignored him. "I know that it's been obvious that I--" He stopped, heaved a breath of frustration. "This is ridiculous. Merlin, stop staring at the wall, at least _now_."

The thought of what might make this a _now_ \-- Merlin's heart shook, and he did not think it. He would think it later, on his own. He would definitely not think it while he was within the _now_ \-- which might not, after all, be at all the kind of _now_ that he _was not thinking he thought it might be_ \-- and when any such _incorrect, unnecessary_ thinking could bring him into danger by causing an _involuntary flight act_, just because he happened to imagine-- _WALLS! Walls walls walls walls walls walls walls!_ Pallisades! Bastions, sentry towers, _any_ form of architecture of fortification!

"I said stop it!" Arthur came towards Merlin, gripped his shoulders and turned him around so that they were face-to-face. Merlin closed his eyes.

"It's not for the reason you think," he said. His power was swelling beneath him, responding to the touch of Arthur's hands -- Merlin spared a very brief and speedily locked-down thought for how extremely unlucky it was, that this sort of thing should happen to him at a time when he had to try not to perform an incriminating lift-off. He might have liked to have enjoyed what a nice, potentially romantic moment this was. Instead, he had to think about _walls_. Definitely, only that. _Walls_. He supposed he should be grateful that he'd had a week's practice. Otherwise he might be in the air, already.

And then he realised that he had just acknowledged his recent strange behaviour, and had given Arthur grounds to suppose that there _was_ some particular reason behind it -- some reason quite definitely beyond any general kind of foolishness or strangeness. He realised this in no small part because Arthur was asking him:

"Why, then?" in tones so soft they hurt.

Merlin wished, desperately, for some kind of explanation. With things gone this far, he had to say something -- and he really had to try _anything_ to make himself stop having to stop himself wondering what it would be like, how it would feel if Arthur kissed him -- and so he said:

"I'm, I maybe, I have--" in an unfortunately incoherent fashion.

Arthur was silent: waiting.

Merlin choked, opened his eyes, took in only a blur of what might have been Arthur's expression -- and then, by looking very fixedly at the window, pretending to himself that he didn't know the meaning of the words he spoke, he managed to tell Arthur,

"I'm really, really, really attracted to you."

Arthur's right hand slid down Merlin's arm from his shoulder to his elbow, to the place just below, where he clutched, with a grip that was a little tight.

"_Merlin?_"

"I'm sorry!" Merlin said. He didn't know what for. He was still struggling to keep his mind a blank.

"No, I-- You _know_ that--" Arthur paused, and Merlin let himself look into Arthur's face.

"Me too," Arthur said.

When he had planned, extempore, to confess his feelings as the least of all possible evils -- to avoid a confession of what he was: and to stave of having to think about _anything_ \-- at that point, Merlin hadn't planned quite _this_ far ahead. It would have been sensible if he had. He could feel Arthur's breath on his face. He prepared himself to concentrate extremely hard. He wondered, absently, whether it might have helped, for this moment, to have read the book on castle architecture he'd recently come across in the library. To give him a greater stock of wall-related thoughts and images that he could draw upon.

He found out what it was like for Arthur to kiss him.

A small part of Merlin's brain -- the very small part not entirely occupied with that one, important thought, _Arthur is kissing me_ \-- awarded him some serious congratulations. He did not seem to have flown or floated even a millimetre out of Arthur's arms. These congratulations were sustained right up until the point when Arthur drew away, Merlin realised his feet weren't on the ground, his magic gave a jolt that thrust them across the room, and then his magic dropped, completely, and both Merlin and Arthur found themselves hurtling swiftly downwards.

Gingerly, Merlin picked himself up off a mixture of floor and Arthur. Arthur stood, too.

"I see," he said. "You -- fly."

It was fairly pointless to deny it, or to attempt to deny, nevertheless, that Merlin was a warlock. He still did, for a while. He gave up when he noticed how deeply each false explanation made Arthur look unhappy.

Arthur, overall, took the news with a kind of quietness that was troubling -- but far less so than, say, a sword at Merlin's neck might have been.

"I'm fairly relieved that you don't seem to want me executed," Merlin said. "Uh. You don't, do you?"

"No, I don't," Arthur said, his hand momentarily at his own neck. "I could never."

Merlin hovered a little -- which made Arthur smile -- but dropped back down to the ground soon after, when Arthur began, with awe-inspiring thoroughness, to extract from Merlin a detailed description of each and every occasion where magic had been used in Camelot, whether for violent purposes or otherwise. He thanked Merlin, for the times Merlin had saved his life. He looked as though he was only starting to process that this was true.

In addition, Arthur extracted a brief and humiliating run-through of the mechanics of Merlin's sometimes-involuntary flight condition. Thankfully brief, but still horribly humiliating. Merlin regretted all over again that he had settled upon _that_ particular method for training himself into flight.

And then, Arthur ordered Merlin to leave Camelot -- to go back to his mother in Ealdor, or to the druids -- for his own safety.

Merlin disliked this order, had no intention of obeying it, and said so:

"No!"

"You're at too much risk staying here," Arthur told him. "My father--"

"I have to stay here, I have to _protect you_," Merlin insisted.

On which Arthur looked mildly taken aback, in a way that Merlin found more than mildly offensive.

"I _do_ protect you," he said. "We've been through that. I don't just--" He waved a hand, in a manner impatiently intended to indicate such concepts as _achieve wingless flight_, _clean your armour_, and _occasionally tidy my bedroom_. "I'm _useful_," he said.

"An idea that'll take getting used to," said Arthur, his expression complex in a way that forestalled further protest. "But-- can't I want to protect you?"

And Merlin's body was wanting to fly again.

"It doesn't work like that," he muttered, and stared at a wall.

"I could order you to leave Camelot," Arthur said.

That did the trick. "But I wouldn't obey."

"I could dismiss you from my service."

"I'd still follow you. Wherever you went, I--"

Perhaps Arthur, too, was having some issues with control, because on this, he came forwards and kissed Merlin. "I wish you would go." He kissed him again.

It was, in its way, a fairly usefully confusing situation. Merlin stayed on the ground.

"I never will," he said.

Arthur pushed him back, against the closed door, and held Merlin there, very still, keeping him from floating away. Arthur kissed Merlin further. He eventually pulled back, but looked reluctant to do so.

"I need to think about this," he said.

Merlin supposed he would have to allow that. Given -- everything. Perhaps in the meanwhile, Merlin could reprogram his magic to become less excitable at the thought, or activity, of _kissing_.

He looked down at Arthur, who was staring up at Merlin -- Merlin having become much higher up than had previously been the case.

"It's not usually this bad," Merlin said.

"If we ever--" Arthur began. He stopped himself. The direction of his thoughts, though, was extremely clear.

Merlin banged his head on the ceiling.

~

Arthur dismissed Merlin entirely from his servant's duties for a while -- on the theory that if Merlin had nothing to do, he might get bored with life in the castle and go home of his own accord. Merlin explained the dubiousness of this theory, first to Arthur and then, several times, to himself, as he attempted to enjoy days of free food and no work and, also, very little Arthur.

When Merlin's temporary replacement managed to shatter Arthur's second favourite sword -- with a certain amount of carefully-disguised magical assistance -- Merlin took the opportunity to talk himself back into his old job. Arthur did not resist him for long.

"You'd only sabotage whoever else I picked," he said.

Merlin tried to look innocent.

~

Even having re-hired him, Arthur continued, contradictorily, to try to persuade Merlin to leave the kingdom. To distract himself from the kind of worrying this prompted, Merlin concentrated on his flying. In fact, Arthur himself was quite insistent that Merlin do so. After their initial explanations, he seemed as much troubled as amused by Merlin's control issues.

"You're going to get yourself caught, you know," said Arthur.

They were in the armoury. Merlin was performing the job of arming Arthur from a position several centimetres above the ground. A few minutes earlier, Arthur had briefly seemed to forget that he was _thinking about_ the fact that his manservant, close friend and potential paramour was a warlock, and had behaved with Merlin rather much as one might with a paramour who had gone rather beyond being potential.

"This is your fault," Merlin pointed out. "And it's safe here. There's no one around."

"You'll be executed for sorcery within the year."

"I won't be." Merlin let himself drift downwards, and knelt to begin checking fittings. It was an operation that demanded the consideration of various parts of Arthur's body. Merlin was quite pleased that he seemed to have progressed to being able to do this with only a mild sensation that he might lift off into the air. He said:

"First, I won't get caught."

"You will," said Arthur.

"I won't get caught. I'm getting better at the -- involuntary thing -- and I wasn't caught even before."

"_I_ caught you."

"That's different." It was. "That's because--" he was intensely attracted to Arthur. Not a thought that helped his argument. _What a nice wall this room has_. "--That's just _different_"

Arthur's pause was probably more of him _thinking about_ Merlin. "What's second?" he said, finally.

Merlin tightened the last buckle, and stepped back. "Second?"

"Second. You said, _first_: you won't get caught. What's second?"

"Ah. Second, if I do get caught, I'm pretty powerful."

A half smile, and some fond warmth in Arthur's eyes. "You'd be able to escape?"

"Yeah, probably."

"But then you would have to leave here."

Merlin grinned. "I thought that was what you wanted me to do."

Arthur looked satisfyingly conflicted as he stalked towards the doorway.

~

Merlin's flying really did improve immensely. The patches of extra time probably helped. So, perhaps, did his slow progress with Arthur.

Merlin was managing, somehow, to begin to even out his energies. Involuntary flight became less of a problem. The thought of _walls_ became, slowly, less necessary to him. He learnt to land properly.

After a while, he noticed that there was something smoother, more rounded, now, about the way he used his magic. There had been an awkwardness to his early experiments that was fading away. He could search within himself, and find the inklings of a power he could be at terms with. Something with less alterity, that he might not have to fight to control. He began to learn, truly, to fly -- to take to the air with the beginnings of a certainty and grace, something beginning to be like the thing he had dreamed that flying could be.

He began to think once more of flying in the outdoors.

This, however, was a prospect about which he retained some uncertainty. To begin with, he would have to be extremely sure of his concealment spell. It would not be wise to be spotted floating above the fields of Camelot. And then, he still had some concerns -- some strong mental images -- with regard to various _splattery_ possibilities. Merlin quite liked being alive, and was fairly sure that _alive_ was not a state that tended to coexist well with _smear on the ground_.

Still, if he flew low, at first -- or at least not too high -- he would probably be safe. Magic always involved _some_ risk. And he could practise the spell. He could do some more general practice. And then, he could get more ambitious.

He thought, for the spell, it would be good to have someone watch him. Or to find that they couldn't watch him, when the spell was working, and report that this had been the case. He could sense, when he cast it, that it _was_ working, most of the time -- but it would be reassuring to be able to make sure.

He thought of Arthur, and felt uneasy. He did not want to accidentally re-ignite any _I need to think about this_-type thoughts, of a kind that seemed to be dying. He thought Gaius would be a simpler choice.

Gaius approved, very thoroughly, of the spell. Self-concealment had obvious, life-preservational uses, and no obvious dangers, either splatter- or detection-related.

Merlin then explained that his particular use would be to conceal himself while flying: and Gaius was then far less approving. He appeared, for one thing, to have a similarly vivid imagination to Merlin's own. But Gaius resigned himself, in the end -- remarking that there was _no reasoning with Merlin_ \-- and agreed to help Merlin test whether he could sustain a concealment spell while flying about Gaius' rooms, without either piece of magic wavering.

"I suppose you want me to congratulate you," Gaius said, after Merlin had faded himself back into view, after a good hour of mid-air invisibility.

Merlin dropped to the floor, flashily, landing in a crouch. "Admit it. You're impressed."

"You _are_ very talented. You are also extremely foolish."

Merlin knew, by now, what that meant.

"Thank you!" he said. Wanting to do something, to celebrate, he tried a magically-aided backflip. It even worked, almost.

"I don't know why I put up with you," Gaius remarked down at Merlin, now a tangled heap upon the floor.

"It's a mystery," Merlin replied. His mind was full of open skies.

~

The day Arthur gave up on convincing Merlin to leave from Camelot was also the first day, in a long while, that Merlin arrived in time to wake him up in the morning.

"Come on," Merlin said, "let's get you dressed. I'm going to show you something."

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

"You're _disgusting_," Merlin said.

"You don't really believe that." Arthur got up, and allowed himself to be hurried into his clothes.

They went outside, off, beyond the city and into the fields. Merlin had picked a good day. The sky was as clear and bright as it had been when he first believed he might fly, so beautiful that it seemed to be promising him a kind of _always_. Arthur's fingers brushed the back of Merlin's hand.

"I've got a patrol in an hour," he said.

"That's a long time away."

"Hm."

A light wind brushed against Merlin's face. They were coming to the forest, and he could hear birdsong. He began murmuring his concealment spell -- with a modification he had worked out, and tested with Gaius.

"This isn't another unicorn, is it?" said Arthur.

"No. Not that I know of." On impulse, Merlin kissed the corner of Arthur's mouth. "This is _this_." And he stepped back, and let himself be lifted into the air.

He had flown outside several times now. It was exhilarating -- he didn't think it could ever not be. With Arthur watching, it was more exhilarating still. He showed off, soaring and gliding on the currents of the air. Arthur looked as if he had had all the breath knocked out of him, in the best of possible ways. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes constantly on Merlin.

"Isn't this a bit conspicuous?" Arthur shouted up to him, a moment or two into Merlin's display, apparently remembering only now that he should worry.

"No one can see me!" Merlin called back. "_Magic!_"

"You idiot! _I_ can see you."

"_Only_ you. You're exempt." Merlin swooped down, past Arthur and around him, letting their faces come, briefly, very close before he let the magic lift him up and back, at a short distance. Arthur looked up at him.

"Definitely no one else?"

"Definitely."

"Good, I-- Merlin?"

"Yes," Merlin said, and thought, _Yes to anything_.

"I think I envy you."

Surprised, Merlin came back closer.

"You needn't," he said.

He placed his hand on Arthur's arm. He had thought about this. He hadn't definitely known that it would work, though, and so he felt a leap of pure, unadulterated joy when his magic twined about Arthur, running from the point of their contact in millions of tiny, power-live, curving lines -- Merlin could sense, though not see their existence, twining about Arthur, embracing him. He repeated the concealment spell, for Arthur this time. And he gave a tug on his magic, pulled upwards -- and Arthur followed him up, towards the sky.

Arthur looked about him, eyes widening, face bright as the sun.

"You are never, ever leaving me," he said.

"I know," Merlin said, "I told you." But his voice wobbled -- and they did, too, in the air, with his emotion.

Arthur laughed at him. "If I kiss you, will you drop us?"

"I'll try not to."

"Well. Let's move lower down."

They did, to just a few centimetres above the swaying grass. They stayed there for some time.

And then, they soared.


End file.
